


Ghost

by bioticbootyshaker



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 11:05:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioticbootyshaker/pseuds/bioticbootyshaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after their night on the Ecliptic Express, and after being pursued by Umbrella and forced into hiding, Billy comes to Rebecca to move her somewhere safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Covenmouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Covenmouse/gifts).



_So glide away on soapy heels_  
And promise not to promise anymore  
And if you come around again  
Then I will take the chain from off the door  
(The Chain – Ingrid Michaelson)

Rebecca read the reports about Raccoon City. The Umbrella Corporation claimed no knowledge of what had happened, and with the entire city dead and destroyed, there was no one left to challenge them, or expose them for what they truly were. She found herself thinking of Billy, with absolutely no rhyme or reason. It had been two years since he had disappeared and she had falsified the reports about his death; two years since they had been through hell together and somehow survived the nightmare on the train.

He’d kissed her, she remembered that clearly. She could still recall the taste of his mouth, cigarettes and the spiciness of clove and something unimaginably, unexpectedly sweet. He’d slipped his tongue between her teeth, his fingers through her hair, and then he’d disappeared into the mountains, his dog tags cold in her hand. 

There was no reason she should have been thinking of him after everything that had happened. Umbrella had reduced Raccoon City to rubble to keep their dirty little secrets, they had turned innocent people into monsters, they had forced her and all the surviving members of S.T.A.R.S into hiding. And yet, all she could do was think of Billy, think of where he was, if he was safe, if he was as much of a ghost as she had made him into.

She was living in a motel, one where you paid by the week and no one raised an eyebrow when you paid in cash and used a fictitious name. She had been Scarlet O’Hara for nearly six months, and the man behind the desk had only nodded and taken her money. It wasn’t the place she would have chosen for herself if she’d had any other option, and not the place she’d imagined herself ever being when she’d first joined S.T.A.R.S, but it was relatively safe, and nondescript, and kept her out of Umbrella’s radar.

Chris called her whenever he was able, letting her know when people were sniffing around her location, when it was time for her to move on. He wired over money, occasionally, when he had the time or the means. Without him, Rebecca doubted she could have remained hidden as long as she had. He had protected her when everything had fallen apart, and he had told her, during one of his brief and infrequent phone calls, that she was like another little sister. 

“Another little girl who can handle herself and doesn’t really need me much,” Chris had laughed, but it had been hollow and a little sad. “But my ego is kind of fragile, so let me feel good about myself a little here.”

Rebecca wanted to tell him that she loved him, in that sweet and tender way you loved someone who had saved you and been better to you than you’d ever expected, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Chris would misunderstand, would only understand her love as romantic, and Rebecca didn’t want to get their signals crossed. 

Instead of thinking about Chris or Billy, Rebecca knew she should have been working to expose Umbrella, the way the rest of the S.T.A.R.S members were. Jill had gone into Raccoon City before its destruction, doing her best to uncover the truth of what had happened there. She’d barely made it out alive, and Rebecca had no clue where she was. She felt like she was stagnating, standing still and caught in a minutiae that was frightening. 

She was the youngest left alive, the youngest that had seen the horrors in the old Spencer mansion and walked away; but her youth was not what kept her still and silent and terrified. She understood that she was dealing with forces infinitely more powerful than her, with an organization that could and would kill her if they ever found her. 

Rebecca wanted to be braver and stronger, like Chris, like Jill, like Claire and Leon and even Carlos, who was her age and not stuck in perpetual, frozen terror. 

There was a pervasive feeling of being small, and fragile, and terribly human, and she hated it but there was nothing she could do about it. She did what she could; she read the reports, she kept that hatred for Umbrella dark and constant and hot around her heart, and she survived. Chris had told her survival was all that mattered, all that they _could_ do, and she knew he was right. 

Rebecca turned off the light and rolled over in bed. If she thought about everything she knew she’d never get to sleep… so she thought of Billy. She thought of him inside of her mouth and his fingers threaded through her hair and his body hard and warm and damp with sweat. She thought of her fingertips tracing the tattoo over his bicep, sinking down against tense muscle. More than anything, she thought of his eyes before he’d turned and walked away; they’d been soft, softer than she’d ever seen them, and tired, and sad. He’d wanted to stay, Rebecca guessed, with her or somewhere safe, but he couldn’t, and he didn’t, and Rebecca was lying in a bed in a sleazy motel room thinking of him.

There was a knock at the door.

She sat up, her heart hammering, her blood thundering. She slipped out of bed, her feet moving swiftly and silently over the carpet. Rebecca suddenly felt very exposed, very small; she realized she was in her underwear, her pants shoved in the hamper in the bathroom. She snagged a pair of shorts from the dresser and pulled them on as quickly as she could. There was a pause as the person on the other side of the door waited for her to answer, and then the knocking resumed, louder and harder than before.

Rebecca held her breath and peeked through the peephole, expecting to see masked men gathered in front of her door; a group of Umbrella agents sent to finish the job and be rid of her finally. 

It wasn’t Umbrella, but the person standing outside her door was honestly the last person she’d ever expected to find. The adrenaline fled, leaving her feeling cold and jittery, her body covered in gooseflesh. Everything seemed to slow down, and when she unlatched the door and swung it open, Billy wasn’t shy about making himself right at home.

He kissed her, sharp taste of nicotine and sweet rush of clove, and cupped the small of her back with his thick, hard fingers. Rebecca lost her breath, lost her balance, and she fell against him, rising onto her tiptoes to deepen the kiss.

Billy ended the kiss as quickly and sharply as he’d started it. 

“Get your stuff,” he said. His voice was rough, a little scratchier than Rebecca remembered. Either he had been smoking too much, or he hadn’t been sleeping well. Probably both.

“Billy—“

“No time,” he said. “C’mon. Get your stuff and let’s go.”

He moved past her and pulled the drawers out of her dresser, upending them and spilling her clothes to the floor. Satisfied with his apparent good work, he moved to her bathroom, raiding her medicine cabinet and rifling through her hamper. Rebecca followed after him, dazedly, sure that she was only dreaming; sure that she missed him so badly and wanted him so terribly that she was imagining him there. But if it was a dream, Rebecca seriously doubted Billy would be tossing her toothpaste and deodorant into a bag and digging through her dirty laundry. He most likely would have been naked and tied to the bed.

Billy squeezed past her, emptying out her nightstand drawer and dragging her suitcase out of the small closet. 

“Billy,” Rebecca repeated.

“C’mon,” he urged, “We don’t have all day h---“

“ _Billy_.”

He stopped, then, and looked at her. Instead of looking through her, he actually seemed to see her for the first time since he’d barged in. Billy smiled, crookedly, and took a step closer to her. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, okay.”

“It’s been three years since I’ve seen you,” Rebecca said. “No letter, no phone call, nothing. And then you just show up out of nowhere and tell me to pack my stuff and I’m supposed to just go without any questions? Jesus, Billy… This is crazy.”

“I picked up the phone a million times,” Billy said. “But, hell, ‘Becca, dead men aren’t supposed to make phone calls. You know that. You knew when I left that…” Billy shrugged, looked away from her. “You knew.”

Of course she’d known, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be bitter about it. The fact that there had been nothing either of them could do but go their separate ways didn’t matter much. Rebecca figured she was allowed to be indignant, to make him squirm a little, to see that he had been as lonely and scared and desperate as she’d been. 

But she had been the one to turn him into a ghost, and her anger felt hollow.

Instead of dwelling on any of that, Rebecca looked at him, tracing her eyes from his dusty boots to his wavy hair. “You look good,” she said, like nothing had ever happened, like they weren’t on the run, like they hadn’t gone through hell together, like they both hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep since that night on the train. 

Billy stepped closer. He had all the same heat Rebecca remembered. The same smell, the same tired, tender eyes. The same hard, damp body when he pulled her close and cupped the back of her neck. She imagined she looked the same, too, wide-eyed and slim-hipped and small-breasted with her hair kept cropped short and choppy. But they had both changed, deeper than their bodies and the tilt of their lips and the weariness of their eyes. 

She had known him for a night, three years before, and she shouldn’t have been so wrapped up in him, so consumed by him that she forgot how to breathe when he was close to her. But she was, and she couldn’t stop herself from melting into his arms when he had her against his chest.

“’Becca,” he whispered against her ear. Rebecca traced her hands down his back, feeling his muscles tremble and shift under her touch. She wanted him closer. She wanted him all over her. She wanted to drown in him instead of the dread and despair and helpless terror she’d been drowning in for three years. She wanted him between her thighs, between her fingers, between her lips, and if that was reckless, or stupid, it didn’t matter; she didn’t mind being reckless and stupid.

The heat disappeared when Billy stepped back from her. 

“You don’t know how much I---“ He laughed, hectic and sharp, and raked his fingers through his hair. “Shit, you don’t know.”

“Billy---“

“There’s no time,” he repeated, but this time, he didn’t allow much room for argument. He took her hand, as gently as he could, and looked into her eyes. “Get your stuff together and meet me downstairs. We need to move fast. Don’t call anyone, don’t ask questions. When we’re out of the city, I’ll tell you everything, ‘Becca. Okay?”

She had learned enough to know that sometimes you just had to trust someone. Chris had told her all they could do was survive, and that seemed to be what Billy wanted to do, what he wanted for her.

So Rebecca nodded and went to get her things together.

**

The car ride was torturous. She wanted to ask him where they were going, how they had been discovered, where he’d been for the past three years, what he’d been doing, how many times he’d picked up the phone to call her and hung up and rested his head in his hands. If he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him, or if she’d just been a phantom at the edge of his mind.

Rebecca kept quiet and let him drive. She watched the bright lights of the city fade away, lost in the rearview mirror. After that, she watched the trees blur past her window, watched the moon past the windshield, constant, the only thing that didn’t get left behind their taillights. 

After more than two hours, Billy pulled into a motel parking lot. A different motel, but in name only; it was the same squat building, the same buzzing VACANCY light, the same nondescript place she’d been in before. The man behind the counter was the same too, bored and unfriendly, and not even batting an eye when they paid with cash and used fake names. Scarlett and Rhett this time, and Rebecca smiled to herself. 

Their room was small, one bed, one dresser, an ancient TV propped on top. The only channels they got were local news and grainy porn, and Rebecca left it off. She sat on the bed as Billy made his phone calls, three in all, but it was the last that interested her the most.

“I’m driving on two hours sleep, Redfield. Not gonna die in a ditch because they’re after us. . . Yeah, yeah, I know. . . Yeah, I got her. She’s here with me. . . No, no. . . Yeah, look, I gotta go. Someone could be--- Yeah, I will. Bye.”

He hung up and sat down beside her, heavily, his shoulders slumped and his hands pinned between his knees. Rebecca thought he looked like the world’s biggest little boy, if that made any kind of sense.

“Chris,” Rebecca said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah,” Billy said. “He called me a few days ago. Dunno how he found me, but he did. Said I should get out here and get you somewhere safe.”

“He could have called me,” Rebecca said, more than a little wounded that Chris thought she was so helpless that she needed Billy Coen to come and rescue her. Like always, her anger didn’t last long, and it left her feeling a little cold. Of course he would call Billy; he knew how much she trusted him, how badly she missed him. Chris would have sent someone she wouldn’t argue with.

“That’s what I said,” Billy muttered. “But fuck if I know what he’s thinking. He told me to come and here I am.”

Rebecca nodded. She should have been angry that everyone assumed she couldn’t take care of herself. She should have been angry that Billy hadn’t bothered calling, hadn’t let her know he was okay. She should have been angry that she _wasn’t_ angry. Instead, Rebecca took Billy’s hand and traced her thumb over his knuckles. 

“I missed you,” she said. It was the last thing she should have said, but she said it anyway. 

Billy threaded his fingers through hers. He didn’t look at her, but Rebecca didn’t have to meet his eyes to know what he was feeling, what he was thinking, what he wanted, how many nights he’d spent awake thinking of her. “I missed you too,” he said. “I wanted to call, to come see you, but---“

“I know,” Rebecca said. She rested her head against his shoulder. “I know. It’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay, but there was no reason to dwell on it, to make it worse than it was. She wanted it to be okay, and that was enough. 

Billy stood and dropped her hand. He walked away from her, and _that_ made her angry. He’d walked away from her before and disappeared for three years. Rebecca followed after him, grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him back. She understood that if Billy didn’t want to be stopped, she never would have been able to stop him. 

Rebecca wanted to say: _You don’t have the right to turn your back on me_.

She wanted to say: _You don’t have the right to leave me behind again_.

But instead, she said: “Kiss me.”

Billy turned to her. She could tell he wanted to remind her they were on the run, they were being hunted, there wasn’t enough time, there wasn’t any time… but Billy only smiled, that sweet, crooked smile, and leaned close.

He kissed like he had to remind himself of the taste of her mouth, the feel of her tongue, the shape of her teeth. He explored her mouth and pushed her back against the wall, and Rebecca let her fingers explore the cold metal of his fly and the hot shape of his dick under denim. 

Rebecca unbuttoned his jeans, thankful for her slim fingers as she slipped them past the waistband of his boxers and grabbed hold of him. Billy made a noise, damp and soft, against her lips – it was almost a whimper, but decidedly more powerful. His eyes fluttered, and Rebecca thought he looked good, so damn good, better than she remembered. She had never seen him soft and flushed and flustered and so hot he was like fire in her hand. 

There was a moment where she thought he meant to pull away again, put some distance between them, but he backed up just enough to slip his thumbs under the waistband of her shorts and push them down over her hips and thighs. Rebecca sighed when he pressed back against her, positioning his hips in just the right spot to put pressure on her through her underwear. He rocked his hips, slow and steady, harder when she moaned his name and slung her arms around his neck.

She must have drifted, lost in the sensation, because the next thing she knew his pants were gone and her underwear was joining the puddle of clothes on the floor. Rebecca let herself be lifted into his arms, her legs wrapping around his hips, her face pressed close to his throat, mouth against his pulse. 

She wanted to say: _I missed you so bad it hurt me_.

She wanted to say: _We saved each other when we were lost in the dark and we’ll save each other again_.

What she said was: “Take me.”

Billy pushed into her, tattooing the shape of his teeth to her shoulder. Rebecca was lost in pleasure and sweetness so sharp it hurt. She thought of him that last night, outside in the tall grass with fire burning behind them. She thought of him tired, and bloodied, and so beautiful her heart had beat a little faster. She thought of him kissing her goodbye; the best kiss of her life, because it had been the most honest kiss, the most desperate kiss, the most vulnerable kiss. She had exposed herself to him, raw and young and in no need of saving; and he had exposed himself to her, worn and jaded and in every need of saving.

“Becca,” Billy said, voice raspy and thick against her. “Becca.”

Just her name, nothing more. No warning, no promises, no lies, nothing. Just her name in his mouth, on his tongue. 

Rebecca came with his name at the back of her throat, her nails digging deep grooves into his back, deep enough to bleed. Billy tensed, from the pain or the pleasure Rebecca didn’t know, and swore against her shoulder. He came after her, sudden and strong, his whole body quivering and taut and slick.

A moment or a lifetime later, Rebecca was on the bed, too hot and wet with sweat she wasn’t sure was her own. Billy was there, against her, his body cradled against hers like he was the one that needed protecting, like he was the one small and helpless and standing still. 

She kissed his forehead and threaded her fingers through his hair. 

She wouldn’t tell him goodbye. Not again.

**Author's Note:**

> Commission for covenmouse on tumblr. :)


End file.
